This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. I'm starting my Google search this week with the phrase "jamestown ny jewelers" to find the review candidate for today. That search yielded these results:
What's surprising me most about local search results recently is the increasing number of businesses that are listed in the Google Local 3-pack without websites. Two of the three listed above have no website and have not made any effort to manage their online identity at all. My best guess reasoning for this is because Google wants to attract local businesses, even if those businesses are tech neophytes.
I'm also aware that over the last two months Google has stepped up its international campaign to attract businesses to Google AdWords. They are snail mailing AdWords coupons to many businesses with offers of $25 to $75 just for trying AdWords for the first time. With the AdWords offer and the top ranking shown above, those tech neophytes have a good chance at attracting customers even if they don't have a website.
Carlson's Jewelry Smithing
For this week's review, I'll examine the website for Carlson's Jewelry Smithing at:
http://www.carlsonsjewelry.com/
This is what it looked like when I first arrived:
(click to enlarge)
Obviously, this is an older design, and the 2007 copyright in the footer proves it. I won't complain about the design, other than it has an outdated look; the font size is smaller than most of the internet now, and it doesn't have a mobile website. Even with those negative factors, they are ranked first in the local pack, and they have the first 2 places in organic results.
Here's what's working well for them...
URL File Names and SERP Sitelinks
Google has changed how they display Sitelinks since I first wrote about them to simply be a list of links that appear below a website description in the SERPs. There seem to be a few simple tricks that trigger the appearance of sitelinks:
- They have static file names
- They link to the page several times with the same word(s) use in the file name
- They use the same words from the file name in the header of the page
- They use the same words from the file name in the title of the page
I've listed those 4 items in how I weigh their importance. I've never seen a Sitelink where the first 2 items were false.
The search result for Carlson's Jewelry includes 4 Sitelinks that you can see them here:
In the above image, I've included the URL file names for those Sitelinks so you could clearly see how they match up between the file names and the navigation linking on the website.
Page Titles
I was rather impressed with how the page titles for the site are set up. Every page of the site has a unique descriptive title as the first few words followed by the store details.
This is the title of the About Page:
About Carlson's Jewelry Smithing - Jamestown, New York - 716-488-9523
This is the title of the Jewelry Page:
Jewelry from Carlson's Jewelry Smithing - Jamestown, New York - 716-488-9523
Shop Online
From what I can tell, it looks like all the items in their online store are items they manufacture themselves. It is a fully functioning shopping cart and e-commerce system on their website. It's very antiquated looking, but it includes all the features I would expect an e-commerce site to have, and even the "Related Items" feature that I rarely see on a jewelry site.
Here's a screen grab from one of their products:
Except for the individual pearls they have for sale, every other item has an in-focus photo, but in my professional opinion the lighting is too dark.
They've also written out reasonable descriptions for every product that the semi-educated jewelry buyer will understand.
What I don't like about this antiquated looking system, is that the shopping cart is hosted by a 3rd party. Adding something to the cart jumps you to the website "ww10.aitsafe.com." This is an implementation of the reputable Mal's E-Commerce shopping cart which boasts 145,000 e-commerce websites worldwide.
Where I think Carlson's made a mistake with their implementation is simply that they didn't warn their users that they were using a 3rd party host for their cart. A simple warning would abate a few security suspicions that are so common now.
That's it for this week's review; I'll see you next time...
FTC Notice: I randomly choose this website and won't be telling the retailer jeweler that I'm doing a review. Unless someone else tells them, they will only find out about this review if they examine their Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. I'm not doing this to solicit business from them, but rather as an educational exercise for everyone. This review is completely impartial and all my comments are listed in the order that I discovered them.
